Don’t look now, but a tidy little dining ecosystem is emerging at the intersection of Northern Avenue and 12th Street, where three new restaurants have opened over the past year, replacing longtime classics Carlos O’Brien’s and Super Dragon, which both shuttered recently. Though technically just south of the Slope, they qualify as part of the neighborhood’s renaissance, we reckon.
The Palms Mediterranean Kitchen
Komodo Asian Fusion
Coyote Mexican Cuisine
A smash hit with pseudo-Slopians since it opened in February, this spacious, open-kitchen eatery plays like a Pita Jungle on steroids, with a vast selection of shawarmas, Middle Eastern salads, kebabs and flatbreads, singed to a perfect, toasty crisp in a statement-piece wood-burning oven (pro tip: try the sujuk with spicy beef sausage and three sharp cheeses). The bar is fun, too, with garage-style backsplash windows.
7811 N. 12th St., thepalmsmed.com
Take Thai cuisine, mix in a little Vietnamese and a dash of Korean, and then shoot it all through with Latin American chiles and general mojo, and you have this one-of-a-kind fast-casual, which looks like a martial arts studio at first blush until you get a whiff of the pad see ew noodles (chile-forward instead of with the traditional soy laquer) and lime-y bowls of pho. It’s offbeat and fun, and maybe an evolutionary iteration in the intermarrying of Asian and Latin cooking.
7810 N. 12th St., 602-943-0255
Tu sabes molcajetes? Which is to say: Have you tried the fajita-like hot-stone dish, delivered on a traditional Mexican pestle? This cavernous Jaliscan bar-restaurant has multiple molcajetes on the menu, including the flagship Mexicano, with sizzling carne asada, chicken, Oaxacan chorizo, nopales and chiles toreados (grilled peppers) spilling over the lip of the pestle. Good place for Mexican sushi and birria, too.
7822 N. 12th St., 602-975-6503, coyotephx.com
